"Doing this is smart because the team has less people to call after the team clinches because so many will be automatically charged," said Patrick Ryan, co-owner of Houston-based The Ticket Experience, who owns seats for the Cowboys as well as 17 other NFL teams. "They then have less tickets to move during the public on sale because season seat holders will have already taken up so much of the allotted inventory."

An unintended advantage of the move is that should the Cowboys fail to make the playoffs, their season ticket holders can likely sell the useless tickets on eBay to Cowboys haters, who will happily snap them up.